Brandery Turns 6, Offers New Deal

It’s hard to believe that The Brandery is coming up on it’s sixth cohort. That’s probably because their recipe, for the most part, has stayed the same. The cohort based accelerator, located in Cincinnati’s Over The Rhine neighborhood, holds court during the summer and graduates every class in early October. Then, they let that years class work out of the facility until the next class is ready to move in 9 months later.

The Brandery has seen huge success to date and often gets lumped in as a top 15 or top 10 accelerator. It may seem like an easy idea just to add another cohort and increase their chances of success with the numbers, but they haven’t and it’s sticking to that core that has been the key to the success they’ve seen so far.

Now, as they embark on their sixth year there are some positive changes in the works, they revealed on their blog.

One of those changes is an increase to $50,000 per team beginning with the next cohort. The Brandery will distribute $25,000 to each team at the onset of the program and then the other $25,000 at the 6 week mark. That’s the only stipulation on the funding. “the second tranche of $25,000 will be invested purely on the temporal requirement of each company making it through six weeks of our program.” They wrote.

The Brandery believes that $50,000 is the perfect amount of money. It means that the founders don’t need to starve to death waiting for their next funding round, “The Brandery funding should not provide such a substantial runway that the startup loses its sense of urgency.” they said.